I must say I'm a bit dumbfounded. I sent an email to the Free Software
Foundation asking a couple of question about the LGPL license, as its terms
are a bit unclear on a couple of situations. I mentioned that I work for
a company which creates Windows and iPhone apps.

  Apparently that was a mistake. They outright *refuse* to answer my
questions because I'm a non-free software developer unless I pay them
$150 for a 30-minute consultation. (They explicitly state that if I don't
pay for the service, then sorry, no banana, I'll have to be content with
what they already offer in their public website.)

  Of course they have the right to do that. I'm still a bit dumbfounded
by it, though. Apparently their concept of "free" doesn't extend to people
developing "non-free" software.

  These were my questions. Does anyone know the answer to them (or know
some place I could ask the questions without being required to pay 150
dollars to get the answers)?

1) If I understand section 4 of the license (version 3) correctly, for
a closed-source program to comply with the LGPL when it uses a library
distributed under that license, it's enough for the program to use a
dynamically loadable version of the library (such as a .dll file in
Windows or a .so file in Linux), which it distributes with the program
binaries (as this allows a user to create a modified version of the
library and have the program use it, as long as the library stays
interface compatible).

This is fine when distributing eg. a Windows or Linux program. What
happens, however, if the program is for a platform where the user
cannot easily modify any dynamically loadable library which comes with
the program, such as the case with many hand-held devices (such as the
iPhone or the PlayStation Portable)? Or to put it in simpler words:
Can an iPhone or PlayStation Portable program use an LGPL library?

2) Regarding section 3 of the LGPLv3: What happens if the entire LGPL
library code is in the header files and there are no actual source
files from which a dynamically-loadable module could be compiled
(which is quite common with heavily-templated C++ libraries)? Section
3 of the license leads me to conclude that in this particular case the
clause 4d of the license doesn't really apply. Is this correct?

If this conclusion is not correct, then how can the program comply
with the LGPL in such a case?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Apparently their concept of "free" doesn't extend to people
> developing "non-free" software.

You hadn't already figured that out? :-) If they wanted free software to be 
usable by commercial developers, they wouldn't have made the GPL. They would 
have stuck with really-free software.

That said, I'm surprised they're willing to give you legal advice for that 
little, let alone without paying them at all.  I wonder how it would be 
delivered: From a lawyer? If so, that's cheap for advice coming from the 
lawyers of the only people who would be interested in suing you. If not, 
then it sounds like they may very well be "practicing law without a license."

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> You hadn't already figured that out? :-) If they wanted free software to be 
> usable by commercial developers, they wouldn't have made the GPL. They would 
> have stuck with really-free software.

  Well, LGPL software can be used in commercial software with only minor
restrictions.

> That said, I'm surprised they're willing to give you legal advice for that 
> little, let alone without paying them at all.  I wonder how it would be 
> delivered: From a lawyer? If so, that's cheap for advice coming from the 
> lawyers of the only people who would be interested in suing you. If not, 
> then it sounds like they may very well be "practicing law without a license."

  From the tone of the email I understood that if I had claimed to be
developing free software, they would have answered my questions, but since
I'm a non-free software developer, then sorry.

  Their response said: "I understand from your description that you are a
proprietary software developer. If I am wrong in this understanding, please
correct me. [...] We offer our services by paid consultation to non-free
software developers."

  I understand this to mean that if I had lied they could perhaps have
answered my questions free of charge.

  And yes, they explicitly refuse to answer the questions:

  "If you do not want to pay for this service, I can only suggest
you carefully review the resources we provide about licensing at
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html> and refer to your legal
counsel."

  Of course they are entitled to this. It still somehow feels wrong.
Craft a somewhat ambiguous software usage license on the basis of
freedom, and then outright refuse to clarify it without monetary
compensation, and seemingly only because the person who asked the
question happens to be a non-free software developer.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Well, LGPL software can be used in commercial software with only minor
> restrictions.

Relatively speaking, yes. But that's why they call it the "Lesser" license. :-)

>   Their response said: "I understand from your description that you are a
> proprietary software developer. If I am wrong in this understanding, please
> correct me. [...] We offer our services by paid consultation to non-free
> software developers."

I can sympathize. If you're going to get paid for using what they gave for 
free, then you can afford to pay them to find out what they mean.

Now, if you're developing on a proprietary platform but you're going to give 
the software away for free, I'd suspect they might be more willing to help.

> and refer to your legal counsel."

Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't say that in the first place, free or not. 
Otherwise, they have lawyers working for you for free.

>   Of course they are entitled to this. It still somehow feels wrong.

Maybe you live in a country where people don't get in trouble for giving 
free legal advice. :-)

> Craft a somewhat ambiguous software usage license on the basis of
> freedom, and then outright refuse to clarify it without monetary
> compensation, and seemingly only because the person who asked the
> question happens to be a non-free software developer.

Seems fair. you're asking them to work for you for free, so you can safely 
use their freely-offered software, to make money that you won't give any of 
to them. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:4b6a1dd5@news.povray.org...

>   Their response said: "I understand from your description that you are a
> proprietary software developer. If I am wrong in this understanding,
please
> correct me. [...] We offer our services by paid consultation to non-free
> software developers."
>
>   I understand this to mean that if I had lied they could perhaps have
> answered my questions free of charge.

Wouldn't the advice then be inapplicable to your case?

>   And yes, they explicitly refuse to answer the questions:
>
>   "If you do not want to pay for this service, I can only suggest
> you carefully review the resources we provide about licensing at
> <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html> and refer to your legal
> counsel."
>
>   Of course they are entitled to this. It still somehow feels wrong.

Why? They promote free software. Not free legal services, nor free lunch.
IOW, I don't expect them to provide me with a free lunch if I knock on their
door.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> 1) If I understand section 4 of the license (version 3) correctly, for
> a closed-source program to comply with the LGPL when it uses a library
> distributed under that license, it's enough for the program to use a
> dynamically loadable version of the library (such as a .dll file in
> Windows or a .so file in Linux), which it distributes with the program
> binaries (as this allows a user to create a modified version of the
> library and have the program use it, as long as the library stays
> interface compatible).
> 
> This is fine when distributing eg. a Windows or Linux program. What
> happens, however, if the program is for a platform where the user
> cannot easily modify any dynamically loadable library which comes with
> the program, such as the case with many hand-held devices (such as the
> iPhone or the PlayStation Portable)? Or to put it in simpler words:
> Can an iPhone or PlayStation Portable program use an LGPL library?

LGPLv2, yes. But the *main* purpose of the (L)GPLv3 is that if, for example, 
the device only runs software that is digitally signed by a certain party, 
then if you give me a GPLv3 binary to run on that device, then you not only 
have to give me the source code. You also need to give me any needed 
cryptographic keys so I can sign my modified versions (without that 
signature, the device would refuse to run my modified software; so I'm not 
really having the freedom to modify it).

The Apple terms of service say the license of the software can't have a 
requirement to give such cryptographic keys.

"You further represent and warrant to Apple that the licensing terms 
governing Your Application, or governing any third party code or FOSS 
included in Your Application, will be consistent with and not conflict with 
the digital signing or content protection aspects of the Program or any of 
the terms, conditions or requirements of the Program or this Agreement. In 
particular, such licensing terms will not purport to require Apple (or its 
agents) to disclose or make available any of the keys, authorization codes, 
methods, procedures, data or other information related to the Security 
Solution, digital signing or digital rights management mechanisms utilized 
as part of the Program."

Even though it's written broadly, this could be considered a *direct* attack 
on the new "features" of the GPLv3.

In short, the GPL *version 3* (and not version 2) and the AppStore terms of 
use are explicitly incompatible. You won't have to worry much about 
violating the LGPLv3 library license by putting your app in the AppStore, 
because *Apple won't let your app into the AppStore* if it has GPLv3 code.

If the library you want to use is actually LGPLv2, the situation on the 
iPhone would change completely. Is the library LGPLv3, or did you just 
mention v3 to make sure everyone was looking at the same thing when you 
referred to a section number?

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >   Their response said: "I understand from your description that you are a
> > proprietary software developer. If I am wrong in this understanding, please
> > correct me. [...] We offer our services by paid consultation to non-free
> > software developers."

> I can sympathize. If you're going to get paid for using what they gave for 
> free, then you can afford to pay them to find out what they mean.

  Most LGPL libraries out there are not owned by the FSF. It's not like it's
*their* loss.

  (Besides, the whole point of the LGPL license is for the libraries to be
usable in proprietary software. They explicitly state it as such.)

> > and refer to your legal counsel."

> Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't say that in the first place, free or not. 
> Otherwise, they have lawyers working for you for free.

  It's not like I asked for legally binding consultation per se. I just
wanted some clarifications.

> >   Of course they are entitled to this. It still somehow feels wrong.

> Maybe you live in a country where people don't get in trouble for giving 
> free legal advice. :-)

  But they should know their *own* license. Or is it so that they cannot
formulate official opinions on their own license without asking their
lawyers first?

> > Craft a somewhat ambiguous software usage license on the basis of
> > freedom, and then outright refuse to clarify it without monetary
> > compensation, and seemingly only because the person who asked the
> > question happens to be a non-free software developer.

> Seems fair. you're asking them to work for you for free, so you can safely 
> use their freely-offered software, to make money that you won't give any of 
> to them. :-)

  If they don't want to get "abused" like that, then why did they create
the LGPL license in the first place?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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somebody <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> "Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
> news:4b6a1dd5@news.povray.org...

> >   Their response said: "I understand from your description that you are a
> > proprietary software developer. If I am wrong in this understanding,
> please
> > correct me. [...] We offer our services by paid consultation to non-free
> > software developers."
> >
> >   I understand this to mean that if I had lied they could perhaps have
> > answered my questions free of charge.

> Wouldn't the advice then be inapplicable to your case?

  The LGPL terms don't change depending on whether the software using
the LGPL library is proprietary/commercial or not. It applies equally to
all software.

> >   And yes, they explicitly refuse to answer the questions:
> >
> >   "If you do not want to pay for this service, I can only suggest
> > you carefully review the resources we provide about licensing at
> > <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html> and refer to your legal
> > counsel."
> >
> >   Of course they are entitled to this. It still somehow feels wrong.

> Why? They promote free software. Not free legal services, nor free lunch.
> IOW, I don't expect them to provide me with a free lunch if I knock on their
> door.

  The implication was that if I had claimed that I'm making free software,
they could have answered my questions for free. That feels a bit biased,
and thus wrong.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Nicolas Alvarez <nic### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> If the library you want to use is actually LGPLv2, the situation on the 
> iPhone would change completely. Is the library LGPLv3, or did you just 
> mention v3 to make sure everyone was looking at the same thing when you 
> referred to a section number?

  I mentioned v3 mainly so that my references to section numbers would
be unambiuous.

  There isn't currently any specific library I'm interested in, but it's
a real possibility that in the future the situation might come up when
I have to ponder about licenses. I'm especially curious about the case
when the LGPL library has only headers and no compilable source files
(which is often the case with heavily templated C++ libraries).

  There are also some LGPL libraries out there which might become handy in
the future (not necessarily on the iPhone, but on other projects), such as
this one: http://tangentsoft.net/mysql++/ (although it specifically contains
the version 2 of the LGPL license text).

  Also, having created a relatively popular LGPL library myself, it would
be good to know what I'm actually using.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 02/03/10 19:02, Warp wrote:
>> I can sympathize. If you're going to get paid for using what they gave for 
>> free, then you can afford to pay them to find out what they mean.
> 
>   Most LGPL libraries out there are not owned by the FSF. It's not like it's
> *their* loss.

	Well, it's their loss in time, which to them is money.

>> Seems fair. you're asking them to work for you for free, so you can safely 
>> use their freely-offered software, to make money that you won't give any of 
>> to them. :-)
> 
>   If they don't want to get "abused" like that, then why did they create
> the LGPL license in the first place?

	Demand.

-- 
Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be.

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